Incredulous, astronomers observed for several months a supernova, which is the explosion of a star at the end of his life , such a great power that has not been seen before in the history of astrophysics and has a luminosity that is 570 times that of the sun.
This observation could help better understand extreme celestial phenomena that are still a mystery.
This supernova, named ASASSN-15lh, is 200 times more powerful than the typical burst of these objects, which are the brightest in the universe. Have more than twice as powerful as the previous record , estimate scientists whose discovery was published Thursday in the journal Science .
“ASASSN-15lh is the most powerful supernova ever discovered in the history of mankind”
“ASASSN-15lh is the most powerful supernova ever discovered in the history of mankind “Subo Dong, professor of astronomy at the University of Beijing and one of the lead authors of the study.
” The explosive device, the source of the power of its explosion, and the energy released still it remains a mystery “he added.
At the height of the explosion, the light intensity of ASASSN -15lh equivalent to about twenty times that of all the 100,000 million stars that make up our galaxy, the Milky Way, astronomers calculated.
This record is a potentially explosive exceptional example “of supernova hiperluminosa” a variety of unusual bursts of high intensity caused by some dying stars.
“Scientists are really in the dark about the nature of these stars and stellar mechanisms that could explain the occurrence of these extreme supernovae “, the researchers say.
This supernova, which is about 3,800 million light years from Earth (one light year is 9.46 trillion km) in a distant galaxy, was detected by first time in June 2015 by telescopes in Chile Cerro Tolol , involved in Automated Survey for supernovae, an international project that tracks supernovae.
Then other telescopes powerful worldwide took over to launch a campaign of observations that continues today.
The analyzes indicate that the light spectrum of the supernova does not resemble any of the other 250 supernovas discovered so far by this group since its inception in 2014.
AFP
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